


Traitor Bearing Hope

by InkRanOut



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: (at some point probably), A whole lot of plot inaccuracies probably, Angst, Blood Drinking, But it's been a while since I watched this series so please bear with me, Captivity, Complicated Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Non-Consensual Blood Drinking, Other, Physical Abuse, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-08 04:49:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21230081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkRanOut/pseuds/InkRanOut
Summary: {Birthday Gift for Loup! <3}





	1. Help A Gal Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lopingloup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lopingloup/gifts).
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Loup!! <3
> 
> Woo-hoo! My first birthday gift to you ever! :D
> 
> I was initially planning to write you that Runaan/Gren slavefic but that did not work out, so here's something different instead! I didn't have time to finish it (Alucard has yet to appear in the story D:), but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!
> 
> I hope you're having a lovely birthday! Love you so much!! <3 <3

When she wasn’t shedding his blood, she liked to take care of him. She was really fond of his hair; she liked to comb through it with her long nails, sometimes while he worked, especially right after washing it carefully and getting rid of all traces of blood and dirt. _That silky mess of tangles._ She would also apply something that made his hair smell like flowers, a pleasant scent that Hector had grown to hate. It made her presence linger, as if she was always there, behind him, about to reach out and caress his curls. Even when he was alone, Hector was never truly alone; he reeked of Carmilla.

His days at Carmilla’s castle were confusing. Sometimes, she invited him to eat with her. He would watch her as she talked and talked, nodding whenever she paused, eating at a steady pace that wasn’t too slow or too fast, just polite. At those meals, he was always served good food, the same as Carmilla, but it never tasted like anything when he had it sitting across from her. He could only taste his own fear.

When he wasn’t invited to eat with her, his food was delivered at his little workshop where he brought Carmilla’s army to life. The food he was fed then was always the same and looked like gruel mixed with mud – tasted like it, too. Hector would know; he had learned that taste well the day Carmilla had thrown him on the ground and claimed him, named him her own.

Apart from Carmilla, there was only one vampire in the palace who talked to him. One of Carmilla’s guards, the one she always sent to bring him that disgusting mush she called a meal, when she didn’t deliver it herself. Hector didn’t know the guard’s name, and he had never seen her face under that helmet. All he knew was her voice, and that familiar smirk of hers.

“Let me drink your blood or I’ll tell Carmilla you misbehaved.”

Hector had resisted, at first. “I didn’t do anything!” he’d protested. The last beating had been pretty bad; he still couldn’t fully open his left eye, and he was pretty sure what he had was a permanent limp. Should he go through something like that again so soon, he didn’t think he would be able to work afterwards.

But the smile on the guard’s face had remained, unchanging. “You think I care?” A pause. “You think she’d care?”

It was true. Carmilla wouldn’t care. She wouldn’t care if he was guilty or innocent. She wouldn’t care if he was groveling at her feet, begging her to stop, coughing up blood while struggling to keep from chocking on it. Hector could already see the fate that awaited him should he refuse to let this vampire do as she pleased.

He was about to give up, tell her she could do whatever she wanted just please, _please_ don’t get him in trouble; but then he heard a quiet sigh, and when he lifted his eyes from the floor, he saw the guard shake her head.

“Look, I- I just wanna have a taste, alright? C’mon man, I’m a starving vampire who has to obey Carmilla’s every whim and take her shit all day, every day. I just need a little boost. Just a little, to keep me going. She won’t even know. Uhm. Help a gal out?”

He couldn’t see her eyes under the helmet’s shadow, but he could feel her staring at him, self-conscious and fidgety. Hector stared back. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Why bother with threats in the first place, if her next move was the verbal equivalent of pressing a knife right above his Adam’s apple? He couldn’t say no to that, not when she looked like… _God_, she looked like a puppy. She looked like _his_ puppy. _Cezar_. Oh, how he missed the little guy.

“Fine. Alright,” Hector said, throwing his hands up in what was either frustration or surrender. “But not… not now. I am… unwell.”

“Oh. Your…” The guard gestured vaguely towards him. Hector had too many wounds to count, too many places leaking red liquid, probably even as they spoke. “…body,” she finished. “That’s… fine, haha. Just...” She put her hands on her hips, turned around, lowered her hands, turned back to Hector. “Hurry up and get well, okay?”

_I hardly have a say in the matter._ “Sure.”

The guard nodded, seemingly to herself, then left without another word.

They didn’t speak next time she brought his meal, or the one after that. But she’d seemed increasingly anxious. _Does Carmilla usually starve her people?_ If so, then maybe Hector wasn’t all that different from the vampires guarding those halls, after all.

Once a few days had passed, she asked him again. It was around the same time Carmilla returned from an expedition with a large part of her army, and she hadn’t visited once since coming back – he was only aware of her return because he’d heard a couple of guards muttering about her by the door of his prison.

Hector couldn’t say he did not enjoy her absence, at least not without it being a desperate lie. He had gone surprisingly long without being abused, and he knew he might not find himself in this position again soon enough. That guard was getting needier and more impatient. He decided that letting her do her thing now was more preferable than making her do something neither of them would come to enjoy in the long run – like attack him, or worse; whisper something unfortunate to Carmilla.

Hector was surprised by his own way of thinking. He hadn’t been like that before arriving at this place. Things had used to be… simpler. He felt like his mind was becoming more and more corrupted as the days passed. But in the end, it was only natural; this was what Carmilla’s influence did to people. She had tricked him. It was all her fault. It was all Carmilla.

Hector thought about Dracula, his low voice and weary eyes, the face he had betrayed. He felt sick.

_No_. This wasn’t his fault, none of this was his fault. Carmilla. It was her. She had to be stopped. _If only Dracula…_ No. Dracula was alive, he had to be. And he needed an army to defeat Carmilla. He needed a forgemaster. A loyal forgemaster who wouldn’t… No. Carmilla. She was the traitor. Just her.

“Go ahead.”

He had to go back. He had to go back. He had to escape. He had to go back to Dracula’s Castle. He had to go back. He continued to repeat the words in his head, even as the guard sank her fangs into his flesh and immediately made a loud sucking sound that Hector knew he was going to remember for the rest of his life.


	2. Price of Sanity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love love love writing unlikely friendships/alliances :3

“If you help me go back, I’ll be forever indebted to you.”

The guard snorted, then bit into Hector’s neck again. No warning, because she liked it when he squirmed, and he only did that when he was unprepared and his instincts managed to get the better of him. “What could you possibly offer me that I don’t already have, hm? Your blood?”

“Please don’t speak when you’re eating. And don’t eat when I’m eating,” Hector said. He was still holding his spoon in front of his mouth, though most of the tasteless gruel had dripped back into the bowl by now. He didn’t like to eat when she had her fangs inside him. It made him feel funny.

The guard chuckled and fell silent. A few seconds later, she removed her teeth from his neck, apparently done for today. Hector was glad it was over. He finished his meal as quickly as his stomach could handle and handed the bowl back to her.

“_Dracula_ would be indebted to you,” he continued, turning to face her. “Your name would be on his lips. Dracula’s bravest general, former ally of Carmilla…” He paused, staring at the vampire expectantly.

“Still not giving you my name,” the guard told him, shaking her head. “I know I’ve said this before, but here’s the thing: right now, you’re still just a human prisoner with bite marks on his neck. Could’ve been anyone here with a set of fangs – and fortunately, we’ve no shortage of those. But then, if you were to mention my name to the demoness, that’d be different...” She started pacing and gesturing with her hands, _this dramatic fool_. “What business does the prisoner have, going around making friends with Carmilla’s guard? More importantly, why are her guards getting all friendly with the prisoner?” She stopped. “That’s why I’d like to keep it this way – nice and anonymous, yeah?”

Hector shrugged. “I would not talk to Carmilla about our… little arrangement,” he said quietly.

He wouldn’t, because this vampire was the closest he had to a friend in there. He didn’t care if a warm meal was all she saw whenever she looked at him. She talked to him. Thanks to her, it was a little easier for him to hold on to anything left in him that vaguely resembled hope. He wasn’t about to lose that. A little blood was a small price to pay for sanity.

“I want to believe you, love, I really do,” the guard said. “But I’m hearing you have a history of betrayals, so I’m not sure I should take your word for anything.”

“Fair enough,” Hector muttered, because he knew he couldn’t blame her or deny any of it. “But I _am_ trying to make this right, I swear. It is all I want now to play my part in bringing about Dracula’s victory and atone for what I’ve done. I don’t care if it kills me.”

“It does sound like it’d kill you, not gonna lie,” the vampire commented. “His victory, you say? You sure put a lot of faith in this guy. Aren’t you betting too much on somebody whose chance of being alive is well below that of the average immortal?”

“I…” Hector lowered his head. “I know him. He can’t die.”

The guard shrugged, the edges of her mouth curling up into that familiar smirk. “Sure, whatever you say. You know the guy better than I do.” She straightened her helmet, made sure her hair was all properly tucked underneath. “I’m gonna go. Don’t want Carmilla or anyone getting any funny but also very accurate ideas. Stay fresh and delicious, yeah? Not you, I’m talking to your blood.” She gave him a lazy, two-fingered salute. “Till tomorrow.”

Hector sighed, though he still waved her goodbye. He felt faint, but he had gotten used to it by now, all of it. The pain behind his eyes, the unsteadiness of his limbs, the paleness of his face. That last one wasn’t a problem most of the time, at least; the only time he got to see his face was when Carmilla brushed his hair in front of her bedroom mirror. Or maybe if he squinted really hard on his hammer’s surface… he didn’t care to know.

Hector brushed a hand over the bite marks left on his neck, hoping they weren’t too noticeable. Carmilla spent quite some time looking at his hair, playing with it. Hopefully she wouldn’t notice the two small dots that hadn’t been there before.

It didn’t matter. _Right now, you’re still just a human prisoner with bite marks on his neck._

Dracula had never fed on him, not even once, even though he must have known that Hector wouldn’t have left his side even if he had. The thought was laced with fondness, just like the memory of Dracula’s face had once been. But now, it stung to think about him.

Carmilla had told him that he was dead, but Carmilla had told Hector a lot of things. She was a liar, and Hector a fool to have trusted her. Dracula was alive. Hector knew him. _He can’t die._

Hector turned and walked back to where his hammer sat, waiting, besides a corpse. He was about to get back to his work when his knees gave in and he staggered, barely managing to grab onto the surface of his worktable to right himself. He felt too weak, too tired. He knew it wasn’t just the lack of sleep.

Tomorrow, he was going to ask the nameless vampire to give him some time to recover, and maybe she’d care to listen. If she didn’t, well… not much he could do about that. And if Hector dared to hope, maybe Carmilla wouldn’t make him lose any more blood soon, either. But Hector knew that hope was next to worthless in a place like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all for now, I hope you enjoyed the story so far!! Love you, Loup! <3


End file.
